With more than one million page views and more than 4,000 items, this blog provides news and commentary on public policy, business and economic issues related to the $3 billion California stem cell agency, officially known as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine(CIRM). David Jensen, a retired California newsman, has published this blog since January 2005. His email address is djensen@californiastemcellreport.com.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Cha sued Bruce Flamm, a Kaiser physician and faculty member at UC Irvine, for libel, contending that Flamm was engaged in a personal vendetta. The lawsuit involved published criticism by Flamm of a 2001 article by Cha and two others in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine concerning "distant" prayer and IVF success rates.

"Today's ruling is a victory for science and freedom of speech. Scientists must be allowed to question bizarre claims and correct errors.

"Cha's mysterious study was designed and allegedly conducted by a man who turned out to be a criminal with a 20-year history of fraud. A criminal who steals the identities of dead children to obtain bank loans and passports is not a trustworthy source of research data. Cha could have simply admitted this obvious fact but instead he hired Beverly Hills lawyers to punish me for voicing my opinions."

Cha also surfaced in connection with the California stem cell agency when a nonprofit subsidiary of his organization won a research grant from CIRM. After the grant was approved, the media reported its links to Cha along with news about the controversy surrounding some of Cha's research. Last October, Cha's group withdrew its application for the CIRM grant.

As we argued to the Court, a statement that accuses Dr. Cha of "hav[ing] been found guilty…of plagiarism," cannot as a matter of law be substantially true when the record is undeniable that the editor of Fertility & Sterility apologized and retracted the charge. Since there is no truth whatsoever in the false charge of plagiarism as the F&S editor has now acknowledged, we are seriously considering an appeal.

Both Dr. Flamm’s statement that he relied on the L.A. Times article and his sworn declaration filed with the Court that: "My statement did not communicate – and was not intended to communicate – that plaintiff had already been found guilty of plagiarism" demonstrate that he was aware of facts sufficient to doubt the truth of F&S editor Dr. DeCherney’s plagiarism allegation, and he could not reasonably believe that the editor was the ultimate authority.

We firmly believe that the Court’s findings that Dr. Flamm’s article was “substantially true” and that the F&S editor was the “ultimate authority” on the plagiarism allegation, are directly contradicted by the facts presented in the L.A. Times article upon which Dr. Flamm relied.

• Dr. DeCherney told The Times he would take the matter to the Fertility & Sterility editorial board, clearly indicating that the board, not he, was the ultimate authority.

• The Times quoted the editor of the Korean Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology saying he was certain it was “a case of multiple publication,” which is not plagiarism, and casts doubt on the truth of the plagiarism allegation.

• Further casting doubt on the truth of the allegation, The Times reported the comments of an author listed on both published articles explaining why Dr. Kim’s name was left off of the Fertility & Sterility article and why Dr. Cha’s name was left off of the Korean journal article.

• Even Dr. DeCherney apparently had doubts, because, as The Times article stated, he first suggested that Fertility & Sterility publish an erratum saying Dr. Kim “should have been included among the authors of the F&S article,” and then he took no further action for nearly one year.

As we all now know, these causes for doubt in the L.A. Times article were borne out by the F&S editor’s subsequent retraction and apology in which he stated publicly: “Considering the facts of the matter, I consider my references to ‘plagiarism’ and ‘perjury’ to be inaccurate and regrettable.” #

There were a number of serious concerns that are much more relevant to the grant that CIRM awarded to Cha's organization, Cha RMI. From comments by the Center for Genetics and Society at the time (April 2007:

- The Cha Fertility Center and Cha RMI are located in the same Los Angeles office building, raising further questions about where and how Cha RMI will procure eggs for its CIRM-funded research on cloning techniques. As CGS's press statement put it, "Women's health advocates have warned about the health risks of egg retrieval, as well as about likely conflicts of interest between fertility doctors conducting egg retrieval and researchers who want the eggs for their experiments."

- The medical director of the Cha Fertility Center, another Cha Health Systems subsidiary, has been named in a lawsuit filed by a woman who says that he lied about the number of eggs he collected from her and other aspects of her medical care.

- ... an author listed on both published articles explaining why Dr. Kim’s name was left off of the Fertility & Sterility article and why Dr. Cha’s name was left off of the Korean journal article.

The author, Lee SH, has been sentenced to 6-month jail term with 1 year of suspension of execution for Copyright infringement in Korea. Her above "explanation" was obviously not accepted by the criminal court.

- ...he first suggested that Fertility & Sterility publish an erratum saying Dr. Kim “should have been included among the authors of the F&S article,” and then he took no further action for nearly one year.

His such suggestion was irrelevant and therefore turned down by me right away. I rejected that offer as I was sure that it had not been merely an error. When asked to present, so-called, the first manuscript with my name listed on, he couldn't. Why? No answer from him so far.

About Me

The California Stem Cell Report is the only nongovernmental website devoted solely to the $3 billion California stem cell agency. The report is published by David Jensen, who worked for 22 years for The Sacramento Bee in a variety of editing positions, including executive business editor and special projects editor. He was the primary editor on the 1992 Pulitzer Prize-winning series, "The Monkey Wars" by Deborah Blum, which dealt with opposition to research on primates. Jensen served as a press aide in the 1974 campaign and first administration of Gov. Jerry Brown. (Time served: two years and one week.) He writes from his sailboat on the west coast of Mexico with occasional visits to land. Jensen began writing about the stem cell agency in 2005, noting that it is an unprecedented effort that uniquely combines big science, big business, big academia, big politics, religion, ethics and morality as well as life and death. The California Stem Cell Report has been identified as one of the best stem cell sites on the Internet. Its readership includes the media (both mainstream and science), a wide range of academic/research institutions globally, the NIH and California policy makers.